Peter LaBarbera Funtime

Jeremy Hooper just sent me this fun link, to an mp3 of Peter LaBarbera interviewing some lady. From what I heard, there’s nothing new in it, except there’s one really funny part when they’re talking about how there are “thousands” of “ex-gays,” though Peter has no proof of this. Since Peter is insistent on believing that sexuality is an actively mutable trait, when Science has proven that it is not, until and unless he starts showing us proof that “ex-gay” men do not get/fight off erections when they see guys they’re into, he still loses. Anyway, here’s how you get to the funny part:

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13 Comments

Scott AmundsenDecember 1, 2010 at 12:13 pm -

As Alvin McEwen always says, lies in the name of God are still lies.

bwandersonDecember 1, 2010 at 12:21 pm -

Evan, you make the claim that sexuality is an immutable
trait. Actually science has not proven that conclusivly
far from it, just as science has not proven beyond
doubt that homosexuality is purely geneticly caused.
there has been no credible studies that prove that.
So your claim is specious at best, dishonest at worst.

Actually Brad, you are the one who is intellectually dishonest. There are decades of science that now point to a biological basis for homosexuality. And zero evidence to back Exodus (and your) theory that homosexuality is a result of bad parenting. That idea is not science, Brad, but a public relations gimmick. You do realize that, don’t you?

Brad show me your proof that Exodus’ claim that distant parents or abuse cause homosexuality. Because that is the claim that they repeatedly make and sell for a handsome profit to their victims.

As a gay man who is close to my parents I am living proof that you and Exodus are absolutely clueless on the etiology or sexual orientation. Yet you arrogantly and dishonestly act as if you actually have answers.

Brad, you are a charlatan and you peddle lies. That is what you shamelessly and self-righteously do.

NickDecember 1, 2010 at 12:55 pm -

bwanderson-Actually, you are only half right. Yes, there have been studies (nothing conclusive though) that show how some subjects over a 20-year span INVOLUNTARILY changed their orientation while the majortiy remained static. In fact, I believe this research and the researcher, Dr. Lucy Diamond, have been featured on this website. However, as Dr. Diamond notes, this reported change did not occur because participants “prayed away the gay.” In fact, many fought against their change in sexual orientation. Any change that occurred happened naturally without the subjects’ input or resistance.

Also, you are once again half right that science has not “proven beyond a doubt that homosexuality is purely genetic.” That’s because the current research and consensus within the scientific community demonstrate that a combination of environmental and biological factors seem to work together to shape a person’s sexual orientation. This is very similar to the factors that cause a person’s hand dominance, fingerprints, height, etc. Furthermore, you should note that just as science has not found the “gay gene,” nor have they found the “straight gene.”

In conclusion, it is actually your claims that are “specious at best, dishonest at worst” not Evan’s.

Oh, it’s been coming here, every few weeks, forever. It’s at the trough. It just still doesn’t know where it is.

Priya LynnDecember 1, 2010 at 2:04 pm -

Emma, specious is something that appears reasonable on the surface but when you examine it more closely you see its false.

WilliamDecember 1, 2010 at 3:48 pm -

Porno Pete claims that there are “thousands” of ex-gays, as does Richard Cohen. Alan Chambers has spoken of “tens of thousands” and has even occasionally been bold enough to claim “hundreds of thousands”.

But Robert Spitzer – and I leave aside here all criticisms of his methodology – who pursued his search for ex-gays with the co-operation of “ex-gay” ministries and “reparative therapists”, was able to find, in a country the size of America, only 200 possible cases whose claims were worth serious investigation, and he had to conclude that a third even of those did not stand up to further scrutiny.

Jones and Yarhouse did still worse. They could find only 98 “ex-gay” claimants. Just over a quarter dropped out of their study, leaving them with only 73. The number whom they finally counted as having changed orientation was a paltry 14, one of whom later admitted that he had lied. And the remaining 13 (let us charitably assume that none of them had also lied) had only managed to achieve, in Jones and Yarhouse’s words, “satisfactory, if not uncomplicated, heterosexual adjustment”. (Personally, I’m an extremist by nature. I have no desire whatever to change my orientation to a heterosexual one, but in the unlikely event that I were ever to change my mind, I’d want the real thing or nothing.) Jones and Yarhouse tried to inflate the “success” figures by adding to the aforementioned 13 those who had achieved “chastity”, by which they clearly meant sexual abstinence, but whether or not one counts that as success, it certainly isn’t a change in orientation.

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